Budget 2018: Stranger than fiction

Incredibly, after Nigerians have waited with baited breathe for an unprecedented seven months, President Muhammadu Buhari has, in the course of signing the 2018 appropriation bill into law on Wednesday, June 20, stated that the document that he signed was radically different from what he submitted to the National Assembly.

According to the President, in addition to the disruptive effect of the long delay in the passage of the appropriation bill on the economy , the National Assembly did not only cannibalise it, but the law makers also practically engaged in a bazaar by increasing the allocation to themselves.

For a National Assembly that is under heavy criticism for their jumbo pay and other financial excesses as revealed by Senator Shehu Sani , the latest misdemeanour may box them into a tighter corner and even land them in political hot water with the electorate.

The situation is even more dire as the electorate is also riled by the perceived high handedness of legislators in the manner that they suspend their members who have dissenting views or do not toe corporate lines.

Senators like Ali Ndume and Ovie Omo-Agege, as well as House of Representatives member, Abdulmumin Jubril, who the courts quashed their suspension, have already opened the eyes of Nigerians to what some have referred to as internal tyranny in the parliament.

In effect, the second realm of the estate, as it were, has played into the hands of the first realm of the estate by usurping budget making, which constitutionally is assigned to the executive arm, because in the spirit of separation of power and checks and balances, the legislative arm is supposed to only scrutinise and approve the budget as opposed to fundamentally changing it as President Buhari has alleged.

If the President’s lamentation is anything to go by, the 2018 budget did not just go under the scrutiny and knife of the NASS, but it was also repackaged by the law makers according to their whims and caprices. That is a complete negation of the cardinal principle of democracy, which is underpinned by the doctrine of separation of power and assignment of distinctive roles to the three main arms of government.

In an economy where hunger is wreaking havoc on the masses and nearly 40 million Nigerian youths (NBS data) are either unemployed or under-employed, how can the NASS justify adding nearly N15bn to its already outrageous N125bn, thereby raising their allocation to N139.5bn?

Let’s look at it from the prism of equity and do a simple math to specifically determine the portion of the N9.1tn national budget for 2018 that the NASS has allocated to itself and what is left for the rest of the estimated 200 million people of this country.

The first pertinent question to ask is what is the total population of the members of the National Assembly?

There are three senators representing each of the 36 states of the federation and that makes them 108 senators. Add that number to 360 members of the House of Representatives and the total number of members of both the Red and Green chambers of NASS would be 468.

When the N9.1tn national budget is divided amongst 200 million Nigerians, each citizen would be entitled to something like N46.1m. If we multiple that amount, N46.1 by the number of NASS members which is 468, the outcome will be: 468xN46.1=21,574.8.

To be clear, l’m not by any stretch of imagination suggesting that the National budget is meant to be shared amongst citizens(budget is projected expenditures). But just for the purpose of this argument, and in my motor park economics calculations (apologies to the economist late Ashikiwe Edione-Egon who popularized that term), the NASS is entitled to N21,574.8bn in our national budget of N9.1tn for 2018, if the budget is shared equally amongst all Nigerians.

And President Buhari has just informed Nigerians that contrary to his proposal of N125bn to it, the NASS on its own allocated N139.5bn to itself.

From my calculations that amounts to a whopping 0.07 per cent of the budgeted N9.1tn.

What this simple math reveals is that a tiny fraction of Nigeria’s population, 468 members of the National Assembly (size wise when compared to the rest of us) is consuming a disproportionate or an elephantine size of our national budget.

Hopefully, NASS has a justifiable explanation for such irrational, if not greedy and selfish allocation of a disproportional portion of our common wealth to themselves, which looks like a rip-off to the rest of their compatriots.

But before then, let’s just say that they have simply handed the Executive arm of govt a silver bullet to shoot them.

As we are all aware, there has been no love lost between both members of the establishment, which have been at daggers drawn since the leadership of the NASS emerged against the pre-arrangements of the party and by extension the Presidency.

As such both arms of govt have been flexing muscle against each other as evidenced by alleged persecution through arraignment of the renegade NASS leadership in court for sundry offenses ranging from over or under declaration of assets, gun running and even armed robbery.

In retaliation, the NASS also refused to grant approval to some appointees of the executive arm as required by the constitution.

The irony of the situation described above is that these shenanigans are going on between the executive and legislative arms of government, despite the fact that the ruling party APC controls both chambers of the National Assembly and the presidency.

Finally, l am reminded of the popular axiom, which says that when two elephants fight, the grass suffers and l am appalled that while the executive and legislative arms of government are enjoying their costly ‘war games’, whereby they cavalierly shuffle billions of naira generated through the sweat of the brows of hardworking Nigerians via multiple taxes (as government agencies compete with each other to generate the highest IGR) most of the people who elected them are spending the night without food or shelter over their heads and even in hospitals without medicines owing to the financial imprudence or recklessness of the elected public office holders.

It is equally galling that no real development that could improve the lives of Nigerians in significant ways can happen if we continue to operate the same old system that saps our treasury and transfer badly needed funds to consumption, such as hefty emoluments for legislators and the entire establishment, as opposed to investing same in capital expenditures that could boost the economy by creating job opportunities etc.

Compare the amount allocated to recurrent expenditure in budget 2018 to the sum set aside for capital projects and you will understand why infrastructure deficit has continued to be the bane of our country.

Imagine the number of Nigeria’s poorest of the poor currently receiving N5,000 stipends (according to the Presidency) that could have been added to the loop, if the N14.5bn that lawmakers just cornered was made available for social security purposes?

As things stand now, it’s been three years into an administration that promised Nigerians change, yet there has been very little or no visible positive change.

The National budget has been increased year-on-year without commensurate improvements in the standard of living of an average Nigerian; under the watch of this govt petroleum pump price has gone up from N47 to N145; fuel subsidy has tripled to N1.4t; naira exchange rate has shot up from N160/$1 to N360/$1; and throughout this period, the emoluments of legislators have ballooned and misery has quadrupled amongst the masses who are now more than ever before taking the option of suicide.

Hopefully, the revelations about the humongous allocation of funds to the NASS by President Buhari may stir up a debate on whether full time parliament is preferable in the light of its debilitating effect on the treasury of Nigeria.

What’s wrong with a part time parliament? Do boards of directors of private sector businesses operate on full time basis or part time? If on part time, Why?

Those are the sort of changes that most Nigerians expected when this govt was elected into office in 2015.

Without further equivocation, let change begin with the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress. It should change by telling Nigerians the truth.

After ruling for three years in a style made popular by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Germany propagandist, it is time to summon courage, be remorseful and toe the path of truth and honour.

Magnus Onyibe, a development strategist, sent this piece from Lagos

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